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Originally Posted by Jenner
I'm using Riko's diagrams, assuming his diagrams are to scale. The distance between 222 Riverside and the Great Hall building is 60'. Part of track 1 and 2 are already under Canal.
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The diagrams must not be to scale... even measurement on Google Earth shows 100' from one building line to the other. CDOT's
RFP document confirms it.
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Through routing really doesn't fix the issue of destination traffic. Most traffic occurs at rush hour going into or out of Chicago. Usually after those trains are finished unloading, they will head into the yard and wait until the next use at rush hour. In the current configuration, the trains are already at the places where they are needed the most. Also your idea of creating new platform under Canal would completely disconnect those platforms from the rest of the station.
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In the interim, trains could continue to go to a yard. They would just switch yards - so BNSF would go to Western Ave. Yard and Milwaukee District would go to the Roosevelt Road Yard. It's sort of half-assed, but it's an improvement over the current situation. Why keep the train downtown - where space is at an huge premium - until you
absolutely need it?
In the long run, Metra needs to start running frequent regional service - maybe not all the way out to Harvard and Manhattan, but definitely to inner-ring suburbs and certainly to the parts of Chicago that are close to a Metra line but nowhere near the L. Service to communities further out should run less frequently to discourage sprawl - these exurban services can still terminate downtown.
Also in the long run, the dramatic increase on regional Amtrak service under the MWRRI will start to eat up many of the existing tracks, and regional passengers need longer to board because of their bags, the ticket-checking procedure, security, and whatever other obstacles Amtrak manages to come up with.
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Before we add any more tracks, I think the idea of traffic management needs to be tackled.
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It's not like they're ignoring small fixes.
Lake Street Interlocking
Yard Upgrades/Dispatching Center
In the end, it won't be enough for the hub of all American railroads. The last time we had massive passenger volumes traveling through Chicago, we had 6 massive terminals. Today, we know that all intercity trains should be centralized, and we have a perfect facility to do it - but that leaves a lot less room for Metra when all is said and done.